Critical Design Reseach

Ideation: Everyday Objects

Throughout all my research, I felt more gravitated towards how we interact with jewelry and whether it is the jewelry that implies its purpose or the human form that indicates purpose. This concept revolves around what I discovered in my second physical experiment on form from which I idealized that everyday objects people interact with act as jewelry in that they are related to the human body in how we handle and use them. Using a pair of scissors is very much like wearing rings around the fingers.

There is already a pre-existing beauty in ergonomics and product designs.

ergonomically designed Fiskars fabric scissors how

These scissors to the left feature a handle designed for utilitarian and ergonomical use. But if you take away the blades, they lose their context and become interesting decorative shapes. My concept illustrated below was to demonstrate how everyday products can be seen as jewelry by taking them out of their functional context and manipulating their form(s) into the context of jewelry and adornment.

This idea starts to blur the boundaries of defining what jewelry really is and how we engage with such ‘jewelry.’ The products we use are essentially designed to be ornaments for the body, just as jewelry is.